My girlfriend bought this product recently. Seeing it in the shower, I used it, being the completely confident, comfortable metrosexual that I am. As I scrubbed away on my face, I got that sinking microbead feeling. What the hell!? They’ve been made illegal under H.R.1321 – Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015.

As Popular Science pointed out:

[M]icrobeads are “adept at killing marine life and bringing harmful chemicals into the food chain. Since 2012, when researchers searched the Great Lakes for small pieces of plastic and found high concentrations of microbeads, environmentalists have campaigned to ban them.”

So I checked the ingredients and don’t speak chemistry so that wasn’t much help to me. But I also caught numerous palm oil code words too. Uh Oh, a dreaded environmental double whammy!? Microbeads and palm oil?! In the same product! Two Earth-destroying ingredients in one needless luxury cosmetic? I had to find out, so wrote them an email. Here’s their response:

Thank you kindly for reaching out to us and voicing your concern on behalf of the environment. We’re always thrilled to hear from conscientious consumers, so we appreciate your efforts of this research and questioning.

Our everyone™ Exfoliate is made with the wax from Candelilla plants, shown below:

Brad Black, one of the co-owners of EO Products, fought tirelessly to push this legislation of ridding the cosmetic industry of miscrobeads, knowing the environmental and ecological impact they caused. A product can have the same semi-rough scrubbing ability while using sustainable plant sources.

As for the two Palm Oil ingredients within some formulations, the Ethyl Palmate and Vegetable Glycerin, are sourced from sustainable organic palm grown in Brazil. This organic palm oil is from a company that is RSPO approved. We are not at liberty to disclose the name of our supplier but their company does appear as a member on the RSPO website (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil): http://www.rspo.org/. The other “palm” ingredients you may see are not actually Palm; Palmarosa Essential Oil from the lemongrass family, and then palmitoyl tripeptide is an amino acid used for its anti-aging reduction of wrinkles effect.

At EO we recognize the interdependence of all living things and we take great pride in creating products that are good for both people and the planet. That philosophy is at the core of every aspect of our business, from developing our formulas to sourcing ingredients to manufacturing and operations. For the past 20 years we have been creating body care products using the cleanest ingredients available that are also safe and effective. Hopefully this helps in deciding if our company/product is a good match with you. Please feel free to reach out any time!

So good for EO! Although I have serious doubts about the RSPO, and harbor more than a heavy dose of skepticism of their organization — and lets hope the Brazilian rainforest isn’t implicated in deforestation here — but we know it’s not from that hotbed of illegal deforestation, palm oil greed and hands-out corruption that is the palm oil (banana) republic of Indonesia.